Question

I created a simple System.Timers.Timer in my Init() method like so:

Init()

        dataUpdateTimer = new Timer(DATA_POLLING_TIME);
        dataUpdateTimer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(UpdateTimer_Elapsed);
        dataUpdateTimer.Enabled = true;

I want to properly uninitialize it. How do I do so? The following is what I have but sometimes the handler method is called after unitialization:

Uninit()

        if (null != dataUpdateTimer)
        {
            dataUpdateTimer.Close();
            dataUpdateTimer.Enabled = false; 
        }

Do I need to remove the handler?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I don’t think there is a guarantee that your handler will not be called in the millisecond after you tell it to be disabled so you could set a flag to ensure that if that flag is set, then do no more processing. However, if the Timer is already processing it will continue until the next iteration.

On MSDN, it has this to say:

The event-handling method might run on
one thread at the same time that
another thread calls the Stop method
or sets the Enabled property to false.
This might result in the Elapsed event
being raised after the timer is
stopped. The example code for the Stop
method shows one way to avoid this
race condition.

From the MSDN page on Stop:

using System;
using System.Timers;
using System.Threading;

public class Test
{    
    // Change these values to control the behavior of the program.
    private static int testRuns = 100;
    // Times are given in milliseconds:
    private static int testRunsFor = 500;
    private static int timerIntervalBase = 100;
    private static int timerIntervalDelta = 20;

    // Timers.
    private static System.Timers.Timer Timer1 = new System.Timers.Timer();
    private static System.Timers.Timer Timer2 = new System.Timers.Timer();
    private static System.Timers.Timer currentTimer = null;

    private static Random rand = new Random();

    // This is the synchronization point that prevents events
    // from running concurrently, and prevents the main thread 
    // from executing code after the Stop method until any 
    // event handlers are done executing.
    private static int syncPoint = 0;

    // Count the number of times the event handler is called,
    // is executed, is skipped, or is called after Stop.
    private static int numEvents = 0;
    private static int numExecuted = 0;
    private static int numSkipped = 0;
    private static int numLate = 0;

    // Count the number of times the thread that calls Stop
    // has to wait for an Elapsed event to finish.
    private static int numWaits = 0;

    [MTAThread]
    public static void Main()
    {
        Timer1.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(Timer1_ElapsedEventHandler);
        Timer2.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(Timer2_ElapsedEventHandler);

        Console.WriteLine();
        for(int i = 1; i <= testRuns; i++)
        {
            TestRun();
            Console.Write("\rTest {0}/{1}    ", i, testRuns);
        }

        Console.WriteLine("{0} test runs completed.", testRuns);
        Console.WriteLine("{0} events were raised.", numEvents);
        Console.WriteLine("{0} events executed.", numExecuted);
        Console.WriteLine("{0} events were skipped for concurrency.", numSkipped);
        Console.WriteLine("{0} events were skipped because they were late.", numLate);
        Console.WriteLine("Control thread waited {0} times for an event to complete.", numWaits);
    }

    public static void TestRun()
    {
        // Set syncPoint to zero before starting the test 
        // run. 
        syncPoint = 0;

        // Test runs alternate between Timer1 and Timer2, to avoid
        // race conditions between tests, or with very late events.
        if (currentTimer == Timer1)
            currentTimer = Timer2;
        else
            currentTimer = Timer1;

        currentTimer.Interval = timerIntervalBase 
            - timerIntervalDelta + rand.Next(timerIntervalDelta * 2);
        currentTimer.Enabled = true;

        // Start the control thread that shuts off the timer.
        Thread t = new Thread(ControlThreadProc);
        t.Start();

        // Wait until the control thread is done before proceeding.
        // This keeps the test runs from overlapping.
        t.Join();

    }


    private static void ControlThreadProc()
    {
        // Allow the timer to run for a period of time, and then 
        // stop it.
        Thread.Sleep(testRunsFor);
        currentTimer.Stop();

        // The 'counted' flag ensures that if this thread has
        // to wait for an event to finish, the wait only gets 
        // counted once.
        bool counted = false;

        // Ensure that if an event is currently executing,
        // no further processing is done on this thread until
        // the event handler is finished. This is accomplished
        // by using CompareExchange to place -1 in syncPoint,
        // but only if syncPoint is currently zero (specified
        // by the third parameter of CompareExchange). 
        // CompareExchange returns the original value that was
        // in syncPoint. If it was not zero, then there's an
        // event handler running, and it is necessary to try
        // again.
        while (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref syncPoint, -1, 0) != 0)
        {
            // Give up the rest of this thread's current time
            // slice. This is a naive algorithm for yielding.
            Thread.Sleep(1);

            // Tally a wait, but don't count multiple calls to
            // Thread.Sleep.
            if (!counted)
            {
                numWaits += 1;
                counted = true;
            }
        }

        // Any processing done after this point does not conflict
        // with timer events. This is the purpose of the call to
        // CompareExchange. If the processing done here would not
        // cause a problem when run concurrently with timer events,
        // then there is no need for the extra synchronization.
    }


    // Event-handling methods for the Elapsed events of the two
    // timers.
    //
    private static void Timer1_ElapsedEventHandler(object sender, 
        ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        HandleElapsed(sender, e);
    }

    private static void Timer2_ElapsedEventHandler(object sender, 
        ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        HandleElapsed(sender, e);
    }

    private static void HandleElapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        numEvents += 1;

        // This example assumes that overlapping events can be
        // discarded. That is, if an Elapsed event is raised before 
        // the previous event is finished processing, the second
        // event is ignored. 
        //
        // CompareExchange is used to take control of syncPoint, 
        // and to determine whether the attempt was successful. 
        // CompareExchange attempts to put 1 into syncPoint, but
        // only if the current value of syncPoint is zero 
        // (specified by the third parameter). If another thread
        // has set syncPoint to 1, or if the control thread has
        // set syncPoint to -1, the current event is skipped. 
        // (Normally it would not be necessary to use a local 
        // variable for the return value. A local variable is 
        // used here to determine the reason the event was 
        // skipped.)
        //
        int sync = Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref syncPoint, 1, 0);
        if (sync == 0)
        {
            // No other event was executing.
            // The event handler simulates an amount of work
            // lasting between 50 and 200 milliseconds, so that
            // some events will overlap.
            int delay = timerIntervalBase 
                - timerIntervalDelta / 2 + rand.Next(timerIntervalDelta);
            Thread.Sleep(delay);
            numExecuted += 1;

            // Release control of syncPoint.
            syncPoint = 0;
        }
        else
        {
            if (sync == 1) { numSkipped += 1; } else { numLate += 1; }
        }
    }
}

/* On a dual-processor computer, this code example produces
   results similar to the following:

Test 100/100    100 test runs completed.
436 events were raised.
352 events executed.
84 events were skipped for concurrency.
0 events were skipped because they were late.
Control thread waited 77 times for an event to complete.
 */